Optimist to publish on new Apple iPad

The Optimist, ACU’s student-run newspaper, will be available on Apple’s new iPad device when it premiers in 60 days, making it the first collegiate student publication to take advantage of Apple’s latest technology.

Dr. Cheryl Bacon, chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, says students and faculty already are working to achieve the goal. A team of faculty and student researchers and developers from multiple departments at the university plan to have the Optimist ready for the iPad by the end of March. Optimist editors plan to employ the new platform to deliver a more converged form of media to the ACU community in addition to the print, online and iPhone app versions of the Optimist.

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This is such a waste of time. It’s just Apple’s attempt to cash in on its followers. The Optimist should spend its resources improving its journalism instead of embracing pointless technology. Instead of being first in time… how about being first in quality? That is something to brag about.

This Gutenberg guy, with the movable type — that’s pointless technology, and plus, it puts monks out of manuscript copying jobs.

Considering that The Optimist has been an all-electronic enterprise for close to 20 years, the technology to distribute the content has been “pointless” to readers for a couple of decades. For JMC graduates who hope to find employment in what used to be print media, being educated at a school that takes changing technology into account would seem to be a pretty important thing.

But don’t take my word for it. Ask the folks at NYT and WSJ who are busily reformatting their content to fit on something like the iPad, or the iPhone, or the Kindle. Maybe none of these platforms will be the dominant media distribution channel of the future, but there will be something to replace dead trees, and JMC grads having experience with non-print media seems to be a good thing rather than a bad or indifferent one.